Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 31.djvu/446

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

the elder [q. v.] left Dublin, Lambart became military governor, and was continued in this position by order of council of 12 May 1642, on the receipt of the news of Coote's death. He was also made a privy councillor. But he had difficulties with a discontented military party under Sir John Temple, and with the civil authorities, who disliked his contempt for the common law and somewhat hasty procedure. In May 1643 he marched with a thousand horse into Wicklow on a foraging expedition. He helped to arrange the cessation from hostilities of 1643, its renewal in 1644, and the examination of the Earl of Glamorgan in December 1645. On 1 April 1647 he was made Earl of Cavan and Viscount Kilcoursie.

After the reduction of Ireland by the parliament Cavan was in poor circumstances, but he had a lease granted to him of Clontarf and Arlaine, and a pension of 30s. a week for himself and 1l. for his wife. He died on 25 June 1660, and was buried in St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin. He married Jane (d. 1655), daughter of Richard, lord Robartes, and by her had a numerous family, of whom Richard, the second earl, was a lunatic, and Oliver, the third son, surviving the second son, succeeded to the family estates under the will of his father.

[Lodge's Peerage, ed. Archdall, i. 353; G. E. C[okayne]'s Complete Peerage, art. ‘Cavan;’ Gilbert's Hist. of the Irish Confederation, passim; Carte's Ormonde, i. 263, &c.]

LAMBART, Sir OLIVER, Lord Lambart (d. 1618), Irish administrator, son and heir of Walter Lambart, of Preston, West Riding, Yorkshire, and his first wife, Rose, daughter of Sir Oliver Wallop, was by profession a soldier. He went to Ireland about 1580, acting in the first instance as a volunteer. He served under Sir John Norris in the expedition conducted by the deputy Sir John Perrot against the Scots in Clandeboye in the summer of 1584, and falling into the hands of the enemy ‘he was so sorely wounded that besides the loss of some limbs’—dextro succiso poplite—‘he hardly was saved with life’ (State Papers, Ireland, Eliz. cxv. 16). Proceeding to Dublin for the sake of surgical assistance, he had the further misfortune to be ‘betrayed’ by O'Cahan into the hands of Shane's sons Hugh and Art O'Neill; but they were anxious to come to terms with the government, and Lambart was made the bearer of their message to the lord deputy (ib. cxii. 25). On his recovery he proceeded to England with letters of recommendation from Sir John Perrot, Sir John Norris, and his uncle Sir Henry Wallop to Lord Burghley and Walsingham. In August 1585 he accompanied Sir John Norris into the Netherlands. He was present at the capture of Doesburg in September 1586, and was subsequently, it would appear (Cott. Galba D. viii. ff. 71, 84, 110), made governor of that town. In June 1591 he greatly distinguished himself at the attack on Deventer, but being seriously wounded at the siege of Steenwyck in June 1592, he was prevented from taking part in the campaign in France and obliged to proceed to Ostend (State Papers, Dom. 2 July 1592). In 1596 he took part in the expedition against Cadiz, and for his valour on that occasion he was knighted (Camden, Annales). He returned to the Netherlands in 1597, but in 1599 his company of 150 foot, forming part of Sir Charles Percy's regiment, was drafted into Ireland to support the Earl of Essex in the war against the Earl of Tyrone. On Essex's departure from Ireland in September, Lambart was made master of the camp, and subsequently sergeant-major of the army. In 1600–1601 he was actively engaged against the rebels in Leix and Offaly, and on the recommendation of Lord Mountjoy he was on 19 July 1601 appointed governor of Connaught, when he immediately began to build the fort of Galway, which was finished in the following year. He was present at the siege of Kinsale, and after the capitulation of the Spaniards he was occupied in suppressing the last traces of rebellion in Connaught (Cal. Carew MSS. iv. passim). On 9 Sept. 1603 he was created a privy councillor, and received a grant of 100l. a year in crown lands. On the flight of the Earls of Tyrone and Tyrconnel becoming known, he was appointed to convey official information of it to the king, and having ‘diligently attended to the business he came for,’ returned to Ireland with such ‘marks of the king's favour, which increase his state and fortune’ (Russell and Prendergast, ii. 322). At the same time it is to be noted that in the document which Tyrconnel drew up of his grievances Lambart is charged with having ‘purposely drawn the plot of the Earl's ruin’ (ib. ii. 374).

Immediately on the outbreak of O'Dogherty's rebellion in April 1608, Lambart and Sir Richard Wingfield were despatched to the north ‘with all available forces both of horse and foot’ (ib. ii. 501). On 20 May they arrived at Derry, where they left a ward in the church, and proceeded to Birt Castle, three miles distant from Culmore, in viewing which Lambart received a slight bullet wound in the right shoulder (ib. ii. 541). In the meanwhile he had succeeded,